Stone Pillar, Musgrave Park, Stockman's Lane, Belfast

Stone Pillar, Musgrave Park

A sandstone gate pier constructed in 1864 and now located in the Grovelands landscaped gardens at the north-east corner of Musgrave Park. Originally the central gate pier of the Shore Road entrance to Fortwilliam Park in north Belfast, it was relocated to its current position in the 1920s.

The pier is a heavily decorated ashlar sandstone structure of rectangular cross-section. As now positioned, its principal elevations face north-east and south-west and are identical, while the narrower south-east and north-west faces also match each other. When in its original context, these narrower faces supported the tops of gates hung from both sides.

The structure comprises two stages. The lower stage consists of sandstone blocks embellished with shallow banded string courses over a moulded base course. At the top of this stage are advanced sandstone blocks with dentillated bottom edges. The principal faces are embellished with four-leaf clovers set within entwined circular banding. The north-east face is now heavily eroded. At the bottom centre of each principal face is an advanced decorative shield on a low base. Slender square posts rise up the sides to terminate in wrought-iron gate hinges pinned into the stonework. The hinge pins have corroded and exfoliated, causing splits in the stonework.

The upper stage comprises four squat square columns with moulded bases and decorative capitals between a small exedra on each of the principal faces. The columns support a plain frieze above which is a moulded dentillated cornice under an oversailing cap. The cap has a shallow pyramidal profile with small crockets around its edges. It is surmounted by a small plinth carrying four garlanded cherubs, each face of which bears the monogram 'WV' for William Valentine. The cherubs originally surrounded the base of a three-orb gas light which rose from the top of the pier; this light has since been removed.

The gate pier was erected by William Valentine, a Director in the Northern Banking Company and the Belfast and Ballymena Railway, who acquired Fortwilliam House in 1859. In 1864 Valentine commissioned the construction of two gateways at the Antrim Road and Shore Road entrances to his estate. The Shore Road gateway originally consisted of two classical arches designed as triumphal arches, flanking this central pier which divided the road for passing traffic while the side piers served pedestrians. The designer of the Shore Road gateway has been a matter of scholarly debate; while William J. Barre is often credited, the classical triumphal arch design is atypical of his progressive style. The gateway is thought to have been designed either by James Hamilton, a Glasgow architect, or the local architect Thomas Turner. The Antrim Road gateway was definitely designed by William J. Barre.

A late Victorian photograph shows the Shore Road entrance originally featured decorated iron gates (now gone) and an Italianate gate lodge (demolished in 1955). Behind the arches were two isolated miniature sandstone pillars. The original grandeur of the entrance was described as "a once majestic entrance screen, in style wholly appropriate to the Italianate villas beyond" with triumphal archways rich in classical detailing including niches with anthemions, dentil courses, decorative friezes, shields, pilasters and banding.

The pier is a comparatively rare survival of a monogrammed mid-Victorian gate pier and is of local interest. It has group value with the other gateway structures of the Fortwilliam estate, particularly the gateway at the Antrim Road entrance.